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SRA pays Leigh Day £1m

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has agreed to pay Leigh Day £1m to cover the costs associated with the regulator’s appeal of its unsuccessful prosecution of the firm.

The total costs for the case against Leigh Day were around £3.1m – £2.1m for the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) hearing and £1m for the High Court appeal.

A joint statement by Leigh Day and the SRA said: “The parties have now reached an agreement on the appeal costs. The SRA has paid £995,000 to Leigh Day. This includes £600,000 which was paid as an interim payment in accordance with the Court’s October Order.”

A detailed breakdown of the costs, published alongside the statement last week, showed that on top of the appeal costs, the SDT investigation into the firm had cost £222,000 and the case itself amounted to £1.9m.

The High Court dismissed the SRA’s appeal in October 2018, when the regulator attempted to challenge the SDT decision to clear senior partner Martyn Day and two of his colleagues of 19 charges pertaining their conduct during the 2014 Al-Sweady case.

Leigh Day represented Iraqi nationals in the inquiry, which cleared British soldiers of allegations of unlawful killing during the Iraq war in 2004, but found there had been some mistreatment of detainees.

The outcome of the inquiry led to the then Secretary of State for Defence Michael Fallon criticising the detainees and their lawyers for “the protracted nature and £31m cost” of the inquiry, which he believed to have been proven unnecessary.

While Leigh Day has been cleared of all charges, the controversy and highly politicized nature of the case endures.

Earlier this month, during a defence committee meeting, former soldier and conservative MP Johnny Mercer took advantage of his parliamentary privilege to call Day “dishonest” despite he and his firm having been publicly exonerated.